Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.

Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!

EDIT: Stregone: Yes. The large grid squares are 1 AU, the mid-range is 0.5, the smaller ones 0.1 I believe.

Star Ruler 2 would be nice, but I think we all will need a break from Star Ruler before too long!

We may pursue an expansion to the game, depending on how retail goes and how the community feels about it.

On new IPs: We have numerous IPs we're considering the pursuit of. It's likely that we'll start prototyping new games whenever we're "done" with Star Ruler to explore which ones we'd be able to pull off / would be the most fun.

The range of genres between those IPs are impressive and span niche and 'unpopular' genres such as Space Combat Flight Simulator and 4X/Squad TBS as well as epic and expensive IPs including a couple of interesting takes on RPGs (One Social, One ... "epic, world-change-focused, procedural-story-generation, sandbox") and smaller projects involving voxel/fractal destruction of ships as a major component of gameplay, an absurdist take on Warhammer 40K/Space Marine Mercenaryhood, and more 'outlandish' titles such as a modern 'Whodunit', and a hardcore survival game.

None of that is guaranteed to actually rear its head of course and many of them are simply financially infeasible in our current situation. There are also more than those in consideration and more we're prototyping and talking about. So I'm sure you can understand what I mean with: There's a lot of directions we're putting into consideration but given the broad range of works we might pursue I can't really remark on exactly what the next IP might be.

I was thinking more along the lines of an X-COM/JA2/Silent Storm synthesis but that could be cool too. :p

(Unofficially, SpyCraft 2.0 would work fairly well with what I had in mind if we were to go with some existing mechanics for the actual characters. Dunno if I want to go that complex with your personnel though; there's a charm to your hire-ons having their own back-story and starting stats before you get to tinker with them. Also would be eschewing Central, as you'd -be- Central/Field Ops.)

I was thinking more along the lines of an X-COM/JA2/Silent Storm synthesis but that could be cool too. :p

(Unofficially, SpyCraft 2.0 would work fairly well with what I had in mind if we were to go with some existing mechanics for the actual characters. Dunno if I want to go that complex with your personnel though; there's a charm to your hire-ons having their own back-story and starting stats before you get to tinker with them.)

I can make no guarantees on how good it would be at this time as it's still a fetal idea in my brain, so don't go getting all excited.

The specific components I was most interested in taking from each were: The metagame and terrain based maps from X-COM, the world interaction of JA2, and the destructibility, small squad, and skill trees of SS.

Also I've recently been turned on to the quasi-realtime style of Valkyria Chronicles along with its CP mechanic and tree-d firearms.

Dove in head first tonight, finished the tutorial, controls aren't the hard part, it's when the pirates came in to rape my face I realized I had a lot more to learn. I'll be back during work hours tomorrow for with questions!

....Unless someone has a newbie guide on starting a new game. I fell behind fast apparently vs the AI and Computer players.

In the interests of keeping folks up-to-date on what's going on behind the scenes (for those who don't want to travel all the way to our forums to check out the live patch notes thread):

[Fixed] Ships on hold or defend position stance will no longer move because of work with tool orders.
[Fixed] Homeworlds had less hitpoints than was normal for planets.
[Fixed] The game did not render while maximized.
[Fixed] Notification of new treaties only occurs when a new treaty is actually proposed, and a sound plays for each unique treaty proposed.
[Fixed] Boarding defense did not work.
[Changed] The balanced start map option is now on by default.
[Changed] Reduced modification factors for shift/alt on camera movement.
[Changed] Notification icons can now be right-clicked to dismiss them.
[Changed] Planetary conditions are now visible after exploring, instead of only after colonization.
[Changed] Ordering a non-dangerous tool (Interdictor, Attractor, ...) to fire on your own ship no longer requires you to force / hold control.
[Changed] Shipyards now provide a small ammo generation / storage.
[Balanced] Targeting Sensors now increase range by a much larger amount relative to its size.
[Added] New ringworld model. Thanks WarStalkeR!
[Added] 5 new planet textures, 3 new ring textures and 2 new cloud textures. Thanks JonnyDawe!
[Added] System Blockades: if there are over twice as many enemies in a system as you have forces, none of your planets or ships will be able to access the galactic bank in that system.
[Added] Empires now have race portraits chosen from the race customization window. Thanks Hazzard!
[Added] Redid the tutorial to be more interactive and (we hope) more interesting.
[Added] Added notification icon for when someone declares war on you.
[Added] New subsystem: External Mount. Linked sub system takes up no space (the mount always takes up 1.0 space), but takes damage after shields and before armor.
[Added] New subsystem: Chemical Bomb. Can only target planets, kills a lot of population but leaves structures intact.
[Added] Groups of haulers can now be ordered to "Keep Supplying This" on an object. The selected haulers will collect resources from the system they're in and supply them to the object, then return to the system they were originally in and repeat.
[UI] Resizing the blueprints window now makes the layout circle bigger, making it easier to place sub systems on crowded designs.
[UI] Ordering a tool to fire that requires a forced order now prompts for it.
[UI] Queue Management window for Dry Docks now displays resource cost/progress.

Since you all probably are curious about some of the elements of that changelog:New (animated) dyson ring (The shadows aren't on it just yet but there will be square shadows that animate along with the inner ring through a shader)

Some of the new planet textures and one of the new atmosphere textures

So my first (newb) question, about blue prints. When I research up stuff, like missles or beam cannons, I take it the ships do retrofit themselves since its a new different weapon correct? I haven't played with blue printing much but I couldn't drag new stuff over, but perhaps that was because I hadn't got the unlock yet for these.

You probably couldn't drag something over because you didn't have enough open space.

As far as I'm aware your components were automatically upgrade with your technology (I'm not sure if already built ships adopt new technology standards, though). So if all you want to do is make sure your ship has the best "Focused Laser" after you get another beam weapons level you don't need to remove it and re-add it.

If you get a new weapon type you would need to create a new blueprint. Just like if you want to start adding shields to your ships.

Existing ships do not automatically adopt the new blueprint. They need to be retrofitted to do so, which can be done through the right-click menu. Also, ships can have the automatically retrofit order, to do so automatically.

Note that blueprints do not instantly update whenever you get a new technology (so ships on automatic retrofit orders don't do it constantly). Instead, there is an input box for how often to do so, with the default being every 10 tech levels. Note, that's across all systems, so if you gain two levels of Projectile Weapons, Propulsion, Shipbuilding, Engineering, and Energy Sciences each, it will update the blueprint. Since pretty much all but a few technologies affect ships in some manner, ten tech levels goes by very quickly.

If my enemy is sporting some pretty high tech reactive armor, lots of small lasers are the counter right? I dunno how but I accidently let me main opponent out tech me, and his ships are frustratingly difficult to kill.

This game seems so advanced, that I hope that there will be some players who will be good at macro gameplay, creating vast and powerful armies to throw at the opponents, while some players will be good at micro gameplay, creating very effective units and knowing exactly how to deploy them.

eobet on July 2011

Heard the proposition that RIAA and MPAA should join forces and form "Music And Film Industry Association"?

I would argue that it does work currently. It's just that the people who are good at said micro aren't here asking what would constitute 'victory' versus vast and powerful armies.

Being able to micro your opponent means:
* You know what his ships are made up of
* You have identified the most exploitable weaknesses on their designs
* You have created designs to exploit that weakness while capitalizing on the foreknowledge of what weapons they'll be using against you (and thus you have a defense specifically catered to counter them)
* These ships are largely self-sustaining and can take a lot of punishment taking into consideration the above
* You use these ships to defend your systems while simultaneously attacking less-defended systems of your opponent and converting them to your usage with colony ships.

All of this requires advanced understanding of the game and in particular a lot of investment in ship design, acquiring the ships of your opponent for research, and knowing how to identify and exploit weaknesses.

EDIT: All that said, however, we do require that you remain competitively up-to-date with other opponents to discourage Turtling tactics. There is a point where even the best ship designer can't overcome the technical challenges offered by an opponent with a more advanced economy and far more advanced ships.

[Fixed] Ships on hold or defend position stance will no longer move because of work with tool orders.
[Fixed] Homeworlds had less hitpoints than was normal for planets.
[Fixed] The game did not render while maximized.
[Fixed] Notification of new treaties only occurs when a new treaty is actually proposed, and a sound plays for each unique treaty proposed.
[Fixed] Boarding defense did not work.
[Fixed] Number suffixes on dates when saving were slightly wrong.
[Fixed] Culling of graphics nodes was horribly broken in virtually all cases. The game should perform much better with lots of ships in the galaxy, so long as they aren't on screen.
[Fixed] Under attack alerts would only appear once per system.
[Fixed] Choosing a govern via the right click menu didn't automatically enable that governor.
[Changed] The balanced start map option is now on by default.
[Changed] Reduced modification factors for shift/alt on camera movement.
[Changed] Notification icons can now be right-clicked to dismiss them.
[Changed] Planetary conditions are now visible after exploring, instead of only after colonization.
[Changed] Ordering a non-dangerous tool (Interdictor, Attractor, ...) to fire on your own ship no longer requires you to force / hold control.
[Changed] Shipyards now provide a small ammo generation / storage.
[Changed] System Window now lists Dry Docks (can be filtered out).
[Changed] Build on Best/Build on All from right click menu now take Dry Docks into account.
[Changed] Carriers on 'Hold Fire' stance no longer undock their fighters to engage.
[Balanced] Targeting Sensors now increase range by a much larger amount relative to their size.
[Balanced] Positive planetary conditions are now slightly more common than negative ones.
[Added] New ringworld model. Thanks WarStalkeR!
[Added] 5 new planet textures, 3 new ring textures and 2 new cloud textures. Thanks JonnyDawe!
[Added] System Blockades: if there are over twice as many enemies in a system as you have forces, none of your planets or ships will be able to access the galactic bank in that system.
[Added] Empires now have race portraits chosen from the race customization window. Thanks Hazzard!
[Added] Redid the tutorial to be more interactive and (we hope) more interesting.
[Added] New subsystem: External Mount. Linked sub system takes up no space (the mount always takes up 1.0 space), but takes damage after shields and before armor.
[Added] New subsystem: Chemical Bomb. Can only target planets, kills a lot of population but leaves structures intact.
[Added] Groups of haulers can now be ordered to "Keep Supplying This" on an object. The selected haulers will collect resources from the system they're in and supply them to the object, then return to the system they were originally in and repeat.
[Added] Added bind 'Focus on Object' to the options menu that mimics middle-mouse-click.
[Added] Added a 'Temperature Falloff' option to the new game settings (default on). Decides the distribution of planet types based roughly off of the temperature the planet would experience.
[Added] Added 'Spread out Empires' and 'Keep allies together' options to the new game settings (default on). Attempts to spread out non-allies and bunch up allies when generating the map, respectively.
[Added] Button on the message ticker to open a log window that displays a scrollable list of previous empire messages.
[Added] 'LAN' tab on the multiplayer menu to discover LAN games without needing to find the local IP manually.
[Added] New object information panel displaying more graphical information and with individually cancellable orders.
[Added] Added new weapon effects from Galactic Armory, thanks XTRMNTR2K!
[UI] Resizing the blueprints window now makes the layout circle bigger, making it easier to place sub systems on crowded designs.
[UI] Ordering a tool to fire that requires a forced order now prompts for it.
[UI] Queue Management window for Dry Docks now displays resource cost/progress.
[UI] Added notification icon for when someone declares war on you.
[UI] Added notification icon when a tech is leveled up, a link is finished, or a tech is unlocked.
[UI] Added notification icon when a planet is colonized or lost.
[UI] The 'Update Threshold' in blueprints is now more sensible - a value of 1 should update when all sub systems have been affected by 1 tech level increase.
[UI] 'New Game Menu' settings are now remembered between games. You may also save and load these settings.
[UI] Trade window hides clauses that can't actually be added to the treaty due to peace agreements or war declarations.
[UI] Holding shift while clicking a technology/link now queues it behind other techs but before repeated technologies.
[UI] Multiplayer window now remembers the last IP/Port entered for connect.
[UI] There is now a button directly opening the civil acts window next to the empire bank display.